The present invention is generally related to position sensors, and, more particularly to an angular position sensor for sensing angular displacement.
Angular position detection is required in many industrial and transportation applications, including automotive applications such as engine throttle position, automatic transmission lever position, angular position of a door or seat, etc. There are various techniques for sensing angular position of an object including optical, capacitive, resistive, inductive, and magnetic sensing techniques. Regardless of the sensing principle, known angular position sensors tend to be designed around the footprint (e.g., sensor package envelope) available for any given application, and, consequently, the sensing and packaging solutions tend to be narrowly circumscribed to the needs of each distinct application. This narrow approach typically results in time-consuming and costly redesign and qualification efforts since essentially each new application that requires a different sensor design will have to undergo new testing and qualification.
In view of the foregoing issues it would be desirable to provide a universal angular position sensor module that, for example, may be configured for balancing a myriad of tradeoffs, such as those that may occur between sensor size, weight, cost and performance. The universal module would be the xe2x80x9cheartxe2x80x9d of a sensor assembly that may be generically used across a multitude of sensing applications. For example, for a rotating shaft application, it would be desirable to provide a miniaturized sensor module with sufficient versatility for quick and reliable interfacing with a sensor body as well as the rotating shaft.
Being able to provide a compact universal sensor module that may reliably satisfy the performance requirements of a large number of applications is desirable for a number of reasons. For example, the universal sensor module may be manufactured in high volumes and this would lead to concomitant reductions in cost. Additionally, the universal sensor module would enable a quick design turn-around for each new application since the scope of any new design efforts would be substantially reduced. For example, for a rotating shaft application, the new design efforts may just include designing a new housing and a suitable shaft-interface adaptor. As suggested above, known approaches in the art of angular rotation sensors would unfortunately require a total redesign of the magnetic and electrical circuits of the sensor and may create a relatively high risk of performance degradation if one merely tries to reconfigure the sensor design specifically tailored for a narrow application to a different sensing application. For example, sensor performance degradation may occur due to variation in mechanical, electrical, or electromagnetic tolerances that may be acceptable for the narrow application but may not be tolerated in the new application.
Generally, the present invention fulfills the foregoing needs by providing in one aspect thereof, a sensor assembly comprising a universal sensor module for sensing angular position of a rotatable object. The universal sensor module in turn comprises a module housing. The sensor module further comprises a rotatable assembly in the module housing configured to define a bore for interchangeably receiving one of the following: the rotatable object, and an interface adaptor for receiving the rotatable object. A bearing device allows rotational movement between a stationary assembly and the rotatable assembly, wherein the sensor assembly is configured to accommodate an array of diverse sensing applications with the universal sensor module.